LEONARD GREENE: Haitian migrants deserve respect from Dominican Republic and the world

If you think we have a migrant crisis, try living in the Dominican Republic, which has become so inundated with Haitian refugees that immigration officials are sending them back to their country in cages designed to carry cattle.

According to the New York Times, more than 70,000 people have been deported from the Dominican Republic to Haiti since October – including pregnant women, unaccompanied children and people who never even lived there.

Dominican officials, backed by a strict new immigration policy, say the goal is to deport 10,000 migrants per week.

“The general feeling of the Dominican population is that we are providing social services greater than what the Dominican Republic is responsible for,” Dominican foreign minister Roberto Álvarez told the Times last week.

“And that the international community has left us alone to attend to Haitian needs.”

Sound familiar?

For months, New York City was overwhelmed by a steady stream of migrants from Latin America who were bused to the Big Apple from red states like Texas and Florida, whose governors were trying to score political points.

New Yorkers were not happy.

But even on their worst days, New Yorkers didn’t round the migrants up like livestock and cart them back over the border.

The worst that some Americans have done was to lie about the Haitian refugees and make up kooky stories about them eating people’s pets.

But even those lies pale in comparison to what is happening at the Dominican border.

According to reports, trucks fitted with iron bars and locks line the the Elías Piña border crossing that separates Haiti from the Dominican Republic.

There, they wait as immigration agents storm neighborhoods in their hunt for Haitians who don’t belong.

Often, according to human rights activists, the roundups include people of Haitian descent who are actually Dominican citizens.

Many of those deported tell horror stories about being beaten and verbally abused.

Those lucky enough to remain in the Dominican Republic are often extorted by soldiers demanding hundreds of dollars from the migrants in exchange for looking the other way.

Among those denouncing the deportations was Gandy Thomas, Haiti’s permanent representative of the Organization of American states, an international body that promotes democracy and defends human rights.

Thomas called the deportations “a strategy of ethnic cleansing” and “a discriminatory campaign against Haitians due to their nationality and color of their skin.”

So, why would these Haitian migrants go where they are mistreated and unwanted?

Because it beats the alternative of staying home.

Since Haiti’s last president, Jovenel Moise, was assassinated by mercenaries in his home more than three years ago, the country has been gripped by gang violence that has left more than 12,000 people dead and another 800,000 displaced.

Just last week, a gang leader ordered the slaughter of more than 200 people in one of Port-au-Prince’s poorest neighborhoods in an attack that targeted voodoo priests.

Meanwhile, Dominican officials say they are unable to continue shouldering the burden of a Haitian migrant crisis that has overwhelmed the nation’s hospitals, schools and other government services.

But it’s a little more complex than that.

Despite sharing the same Caribbean island of Hispaniola, Haiti and the Dominican Republic have vastly different cultures and economies.

Haiti remains one of the poorest countries in the world, while the Dominican Republic is a popular tourist destination.

There comes a point at which a country like the Dominican Republic or a city like New York says enough is enough. This is a global crisis. The whole world should be pitching in.

But until that happens, the least we can do is give them some dignity and respect.